Rationalist Approaches to Conflict Prevention and Resolution

An emerging literature on civil and international conflict management is developing and testing insights from formal theories of conflict. Third parties may attempt to prevent or resolve conflict by providing material incentives or by providing or filtering information. Material incentives are the province of states, for the most part, while weaker third parties can provide information. There is considerable debate over whether threats of third-party intervention actually deter conflict, provoke conflict, have no effect, or have nonmonotonic effects on the likelihood of conflict. Providing information via mediation is seen as effective in preventing conflict, but questions remain about precisely how it works and about the appropriate characteristics of the mediator, such as whether mediators should be biased or unbiased.